Morris Dees

"Teaching Tolerance"

In 1971, Morris Dees, a lawyer and civil rights activist, co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a well-known, nonprofit group that maintains a pool of lawyers specializing in lawsuits involving civil-rights violations and racially motivated crimes. Mr. Dees has become a national spokesman for Teaching Tolerance, the Center's new educational project targeted to the prevention of racial violence. In 1981, Mr. Dees and the Center won a landmark $7 million lawsuit against the Klu Klux Klan for inciting violence. Author of Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat, and A Season for Justice, Mr. Dees was named Trial Lawyer of the Year in 1987 by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, and received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Award from the National Education Association in 1991.